


wash dun (i'd travel to hell and back for you)

by g_e_r_a_r_d



Category: Gerard Way - Fandom, My Chemical Romance, Panic! at the Disco, Twenty One Pilots, random emo bands
Genre: A little, Gerard is cute, I LOVE BEING ACKNOWLEDGED, LEAVE ME SOME KUDOS, M/M, No Sex, No Smut, Romance, Tyler is depressed, brendon is a dryer, from tylers asshole family, he is a very sexy washing machine, idk - Freeform, josh is a washing machine, josh is sexy, lots o swearing, oh and jenna is dead, ok, ok i dont like writing that kind of stuff, ok im done with these tags, small romance between tyler and gerard, so theres some homophobia, the beans are pure, theres a lot of weird shit going on in here, theres no awkward washing machine sex, they all go to hell, tyler falls in love with josh, tyler is awkward, tyler joseph - Freeform, tylers family is mean, very sexy washing machine, washing machine
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-02
Updated: 2017-06-10
Packaged: 2018-11-08 04:04:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 7,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11073690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/g_e_r_a_r_d/pseuds/g_e_r_a_r_d
Summary: tyler joseph meets josh dun, also known as... his washing machine.  when he meets gerard way, the son of a priest, he learns he's going to have to travel... literally... to hell and back to save josh from a curse the devil put on him.---------find this story on wattpad at https://www.wattpad.com/story/109902228-the-wash-dun-fic-joshler-au.---------lowercase intended.---------SORRY BUT THIS IS KIND OF ON UNOFFICIAL HIATUS BECAUSE OF "NOTES" AND ALSO I WAS WRITING TOO MUCH TYLARD (OR GERLER IDK) AND LOST ANY ASPECT OF THE JOSHLER AND THE PLOT LMAO





	1. rainstorms and ramen

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [the wash dun fic (joshler au)](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/295329) by 0lostinstars0. 



it was raining.

tyler hated it when it rained. he wasn’t exactly scared of the rain – he was a perfectly competent nineteen-year-old – but he still got a little paranoid, like the roof would suddenly cave in, or he’d get electrocuted by a random strike of lightning.

he constantly reminded himself that normal nineteen-year-old boys didn’t cower under the blankets when storms crept up over his home, but it didn’t help. he couldn’t help being reminded about… _her_ … each time it rained.

he’d loved her, and the rain took her away.

tyler shut his eyes and tried to forget about _her._ to take his mind off things, he put on the television and watched some stupid reality show for as long as he could. it was a horrible show, filled with rich people wearing too much makeup and lots of fake drama. he honestly couldn’t think of a single reason as to why it was actually airing on the channel. it was so bad.

he made fun of the show for a little while, but the thoughts of rain and lightning kept plaguing his mind so he turned off the t.v. and went to make himself a cup of coffee. tyler loved coffee, but he loved red bull more. unfortunately, red bull just made him jumpy and more paranoid during storms, so he ignored the colored cans – a rarity, considering his food budget –  that invited him into the fridge and instead took out the milk.

tyler hated living alone. he usually made his coffee with a little bit of half-and-half, but he’d run out of it and never seemed to have the time or money to go to the store and buy some more. instead, he settled for the almost-expired jug of milk that he honestly couldn’t remember ever buying.

his chest ached a little as he thought of how lonely it was to live alone. he briefly thought of _her –_ she’d been his best friend, but then she’d _left._ all he had was his family, but they were off-limits. they’d reacted horribly when he came out to them two thanksgivings ago. the holiday had ended with them turning their heads in disdain as he carried his bags out of the house; and they called out horrible things to him as he left – _faggot, sinner, satan-lover_ – he’d had to break into his college fund to rent this apartment and now had to rely on his slightly-above-average basketball skills to sign up for a scholarship.

tyler bit back a volley of immature tears as he set the milk jug back into the fridge, fist clenched so hard around its handle that his bitten-down fingernails were digging into his palm. he opted out of adding sugar to the coffee because he didn’t even know if he had any in the cabinet. every time he looked inside, there only seemed to be ramen and the cheapest coffee that money could buy. oh, and instant tuna.

tyler hated instant tuna with a passion. he basically lived off the ramen. it was because his parents had banished him two years ago, right before his seventeenth birthday. he’d had to get his own apartment before it was even legal for him to live alone.

he was so skinny because his parents didn’t care about him. he could count his ribs and see the ends of his bones in the mirror – if he looked – but he never looked.

tyler dragged himself over to the now-empty coffee pot, rinsing it and putting some plain water in. he waited for the water to heat up and he tossed a brick of ramen into the pot. it was sad that he couldn’t even afford to pay for the oven to be fixed. it had broken three months into his stay at the apartment, and the managers didn’t even seem to know or care.

tyler stared out of the kitchen window and listened to the roar of the rain and the steady dripping of the leaking kitchen sink. he’d forgotten to tell the managers about that – of course, they wouldn’t care – so he situated an old water purify under it and tried to keep from wasting the water. the purification tablets in the jug hadn’t ever been replaced, but it was the largest and cleanest container that tyler owned.

he added the flavoring to his ramen and poured it into a bowl, grabbing a fork and hoisting himself onto the counter to eat. the table was covered in job applications and information on how to apply for food stamps, and he really didn’t want to get any of that stuff covered in murky yellow ramen broth.

out of nowhere, tyler suddenly heard a strange, rhythmic drumming sound. quite literally a drumming sound, it almost sounded as though his next-door neighbor had taken up the drums. the only problem with that was that his next-door neighbor was a ninety-year-old lady who owned enough cats to have one for every year she’d been alive.

tyler grabbed his bowl of hot ramen as a weapon, hopping off the counter. he wondered if his dryer was acting up again. it had once made a frightening banging sound when his pajama pants got caught in the door. the drumming noise was faint over the pounding rain, but he followed it right into his tiny laundry room – just as he’d suspected.

_r.i.p pajama pants,_ he thought as he flicked on the lights and set the ramen on the washing machine. the noise was really loud now, and he couldn’t figure out which machine it was coming from. so he turned off both of the machines. the noise died quickly. tyler muttered under his breath and turned both machines back on. the noise was gone, so he turned to leave.

he was back in the kitchen by the time he realized he’d left his ramen in the laundry room. he groaned and turned back around, pulling at his hair. “goddamn useless appliances,” he mumbled as he pulled open the door to grab his ramen.

it was then that he saw the washing machine. it was red – it definitely hadn’t been red before – and nicer, with a sink under the glass panel on top and a porthole window-door in the front – like one of those nice, really expensive washing machines in television commercials. it was much taller than… well, the washer that had been there before. instead of his old, crusty white washer, this one was beautiful and smooth, cherry-red and decorated with chrome trim. the buttons and knobs matched the trim.

tyler wasn’t really into washing machines, but he knew this one was special… not to mention expensive. it was definitely not his washing machine. he blinked a few times, wondering if he was going crazy and imagining things. out of all things to be hallucinating, a nice new washing machine seemed to be strange.

tyler ran his hand over the smooth metal and the machine roared to life, startling him as he stumbled backwards. a noise almost like a moan erupted from the washer, and tyler sank to his knees, scared. perhaps the aliens really had come, and they were possessing his appliances with evil robot technology!

he looked up from the floor and his head was directly level with the front window of the machine.

but instead of being empty and metal inside, there was something almost like a hologram inside of the washer. it was a boy’s head.

“hello, tyler,” the head said, and the washing drum gave a sudden lurch, spinning around once. the head rotated 360° with it. tyler yelled, scrambling away from the machine.

_he’d finally gone crazy._


	2. it's alive!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "holy shit. not only is my washing machine alive, but my dryer is too, and it’s an asshole."

tyler opened his eyes slowly. his head was throbbing and it was still raining. it seemed darker in the laundry room than before.

“are you okay?” he heard, the unfamiliar voice echoing, as though it was coming from inside of a metal barrel. tyler sat up, rubbing his eyes and groaning. his back ached from being on the cold, hard floor.

“you hit your head pretty hard when i tried to talk to you,” the voice said. “i think you got knocked out.”

tyler looked around quickly. there was no one in the room with him. he didn’t remember even falling – or getting knocked out.

“over here,” said the voice, and he looked up at the washing machine. it was then that his memories from before he blacked out hit him with the weight of… well, the weight of a 300-pound washing machine. with a boy’s head floating like a hologram inside of it.

tyler gasped and crawled backwards, scrambling away from the washing machine. even though the voice coming from it was quiet and kind, he was still scared.

_to think that just a little while ago he was scared of the rain…_

“wh-who are y-you?” he asked, sitting a few feet away from the washer. it gave a quick little spin and the face smiled. its eyes crinkled up when it smiled. tyler realized that the washer actually looked quite friendly.

“i am _wash dun_ ,” the washing machine said, in all its shiny red glory. “some call me wash. some call me josh. your choice.”

“what are you doing here… josh?” asked tyler, slowly approaching the machine and poking it. it was definitely a washing machine; the reverberating echo of metal sounded when he touched it. just a normal washing machine… but there was a head floating in it. he blinked a few times and pinched himself.

“it’s not a dream,” josh said, spinning again. “i’m real, tyler.”

“how do you know my name? what are you doing here?” tyler repeated, putting a hand on the glass.

josh quickly said, “don’t fog up my window! i can’t see you!”

tyler removed his hand from the glass and hastily wiped away the moisture from his hand with the hem of his shirt. josh relaxed and finally replied to his questions. “i know your name because of your basketball jerseys.”

“so why are you here? what are you doing? have you been hiding from me this whole time?”

the head nodded sadly. “i wasn’t able to be in my true form before… but for some reason, now i can show myself.” it was then that tyler noticed the head’s bright red hair. it matched the machine. it was curly and, tyler secretly admitted to himself, kind of cute. he closed his eyes and scolded himself. _he was hallucinating! this was a disembodied head inside of a washing machine! he should not have been thinking about the fact that the head was cute – in the way it smiled, its adorable hair… ugh!_

tyler felt himself blushing and the washing machine cocked its head at him. “are you okay?”

tyler felt himself getting angry. “why are you here?” he’d asked the question several times and the washer had avoided answering him.

“i don’t know,” josh confessed. “i’ve been here before you even moved here… me and brendon…”

tyler gasped. “is that the dryer?”

josh nodded. “we used to be back in new york… but for some reason, we followed our previous owners when they moved. when they moved again, we didn’t. it was weird.”

tyler looked suspiciously at the dryer. “why is this brendon guy a dryer? why are you a washer?”

if josh had had shoulders, he probably would have shrugged, but he couldn’t. instead, he said, “i don’t know. i can’t really remember. brendon says that we were probably… people… at some point. like you.”

“but you turned into a washing machine.”

“yes,” said josh.

tyler glanced at the dryer again. it stayed old and white and stained with all sorts of crap. it wasn’t turning into… brendon…

“do you know why you just suddenly were able to show yourself?”

josh shook his head. “i don’t know. i felt something… deep inside of me… and at first i thought maybe your clothes got knotted inside of me again, but then i felt something touch me… and i turned into this. it’s quite nice not being a crusty white washer anymore.”

tyler laughed. “maybe it was the ramen… i put the ramen on top of you when i came in here.”

josh looked confused. “ramen… you always have ramen stains on your shirts…”

tyler hoisted himself up and took the ramen off of josh’s top, moving it to the dryer. nothing happened, and he sat back down.

“i don’t know,” he said. “hey, what happens if i open the door?”

josh shook his head. “i don’t know. try it?”

tyler opened the shiny front-loading door and peered inside. josh’s face didn’t appear to be there any more.

“josh?” he said into the washer. “josh?”

there was a voice from beside him. “quick! close the goddamn door!” it said sassily. tyler whipped around, slamming shut josh’s door and turning to the dryer. it was now a hideous, shiny yellow, but other than the color, it matched josh.

“who are you?” he yelled. there was a head inside of the dryer, too. it was a pretty normal-looking head, except for the fact that it had an inordinately large forehead. the dryer stayed silent, glaring at tyler with an extremely unattractive look on his face.

tyler sighed and turned back to josh. “are you okay? i didn’t mean to do… whatever happened when i opened the door. unfortunately, the dryer came to life when i did.”

josh blinked his eyes several times and shook his head. “it’s ok. that’s brendon. he can be annoying sometimes…” he turned his face in the direction of the large-forehead man. “oi! brendon!”

the man in the dryer glared at josh. “what do you want?”

suddenly, the phone rang from several rooms away. tyler looked over his shoulder. he didn’t know anyone that would be calling him, but he needed some fresh air. he needed to think about the two… things… that were in his laundry room.

“i’ll be right back, guys, that’s my phone going off,” he explained as he dashed out of the room.

_holy shit. not only is my washing machine alive, but my dryer is too, and it’s an asshole._


	3. phone call

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “tyler?”  
> ...tyler nearly dropped the phone. it was his mother.

“tyler?”

tyler nearly dropped the phone. it was his mother. he hadn’t heard from his mother in more than two years… not since that fateful thanksgiving. he blinked in surprise, nearly dropping the phone. she sounded so… so vulnerable, unlike how she’d sounded when he last heard her. angry, disappointed, filled with hatred as she yelled at him, told him he was a sinner who was purposefully defying god.

“tyler, is that you?”

tyler breathed into the phone. “it’s me.”

he could hear her shaky breaths on the other end. “tyler… i know that we haven’t… communicated… in two years… even though you aren’t part of the family any more… i think that you should know that my husband… has passed away.”

it stung tyler to hear his mother refer to his dad as “my husband” – not as “your father”. and apparently, he wasn’t part of the family any more. it nearly made him laugh to think that she thought he even cared. but at the same time, he was filled with a sort of spiteful sadness. his father, who raised him until he was almost seventeen.

he’d learned how to play basketball, get his first job, fix up his first car. he had engaged in so many manly activities with his father. he’d even learned how to do stuff like fish and hunt one summer, even though they lived in a big city. his father had been a more important part of his life than tyler’s mother – chris was, by far, more accepting and less religious than kelly.

however, chris had not stopped the rest of his family when they chased tyler from the house and called him a faggot.

tyler didn’t know how to reply.

“i – i…” he uttered into the phone to let his… to let kelly know he was still on the phone. “is there going to be a funeral?”

he could hear the disdain mixed in with kelly’s teary voice when she spoke over the phone to him. “there will be one. but you are not welcome. you are not my son. you are not – were not chris’ son.”

tyler’s chest hurt even more than before. it was from the absence of feeling, he decided. he should have been sad, or at least shocked, but he just felt a whole lot of disgust.

“you think i’m going to miss his funeral?” he snapped into the phone. “forget that. i’ll be there.”

and he would. no amount of torment from his family would stop him from seeing his father for a final time. he knew exactly where the funeral would be held – the same church he had attended twice weekly, every week for almost seventeen years.

“you are not welcome,” kelly repeated. tyler hung up the phone.

all he had to do was get ahold of a newspaper to find the obituary…

\-----

tyler walked back into the laundry room, the shock still not coming.

he collapsed against the side of the dryer and cradled the cold ramen bowl against his empty chest. his father was gone. he’d never see his father again – just like he’d never see _her_ again. so why was he not crying? why was he not bawling his eyes out and becoming paralyzed with sadness?

“is everything okay?” josh asked anxiously, his head reappearing in the glass. “brendon, does he look okay?”

tyler moaned in confusion and anger. apparently, his washing machine was actually alive and named josh, and his dryer was named brendon – and his father was dead.

and he still felt normal.

the dryer came to life against his back, rumbling comfortingly against him. that was enough to lull tyler to sleep, just as the first tears started to form in his eyes.

“is he crying? it looks like he’s crying,” the washer said anxiously. he peered at tyler, who was slumped against him. the bowl of ramen was on the floor next to him, and his knees were tucked into his chest.

“are you staring at him?” whispered brendon, a smug tone in his voice as josh looked at tyler, concerned.

“n-no,” said josh, his head resuming its normal position. he felt his face getting warm, an unfamiliar sensation. brendon smirked at him and gave a little rumble.

“don’t look at other men, you know i’ll always be your only one, love,” brendon said jokingly. josh glared at him, their short relationship had been a sort of experiment, and both of them knew that. they’d gotten as close, romantically, as a washer and dryer could get. but nothing more.

josh couldn’t help but be concerned for the boy leaning against brendon, though. even while slumped against brendon’s comforting warmth, he was still sleep-crying, little tears snaking their way down his face every so often. he was so adorable, josh thought, even though he was crying. and asleep. most of the people that josh had ever seen crying or sleeping were ugly. tyler looked like an angel.

brendon suddenly frowned. “you don’t think he’s mad because i told him to shut the goddamn door?”

josh would’ve shrugged, but considering that he was a disembodied head hologram floating inside of a washing machine – and that he had no shoulders – he didn’t. brendon seemed to get the idea.

they fell into a soft silence, anxiously watching tyler as he fell deeper and deeper into sleep, completely limp against brendon’s warm metal side. josh suddenly felt extremely jealous, wishing that tyler had chosen to fall asleep against him. after all, josh could do some pretty snazzy washing machine tricks, like deep clean and warm wash, which were soothing to listen to.

before he knew it, josh was asleep too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the plot’s kicking up! sorry about the f-slurs in this story. i’m extremely supportive of those in the lgbt+ community (being in it myself ^-^), and believe me, i hate writing that word as much as you hate reading it.


	4. newspapers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> his next task was to find a newspaper for his town in columbus, which was a little ways from him. all he’d have to do was find the paper and read his father’s obituary. then he could crash the funeral.  
> of course, nothing was ever that easy.

tyler dreamt of white dresses and roaches. corpses and coffins haunted his dreams, floating in and out of his subconscious as he laid against brendon. the nightmare of a never-ending funeral procession dominated his dreamscape.

his family was at the funeral, but the whole time, they screamed homophobic slurs at him and pelted him with dead, rotten roses. only at the end, when the coffin was opened, did they fall in a hushed, confused silence. tyler peered into the casket, just as bewildered, and was met with the bloody severed head of none other than josh dun, in his red-haloed glory, unblinking brown eyes staring right into tyler’s. he screamed and screamed until he woke up, tears tracking down his face.

his throat was raw as hell, and both the washer and the dryer were frantically calling his name. “tyler? tyler? are you okay?” even the rude dryer seemed concerned, in all of his large-foreheaded glory. tyler sat up, clutching his head, which suddenly felt as though it had been split open with a sledgehammer.

he groaned and used brendon to haul himself to his feet. “i’m going to go get tylenol,” he muttered, stumbling his way into the bathroom and swallowing the pills dry. his next task was to find a newspaper for his town in columbus, which was a little ways from him. all he’d have to do was find the paper and read his father’s obituary. then he could crash the funeral.

of course, nothing was ever that easy.

first, he went to taco bell to get a burrito. it was so good, but he couldn’t afford another one.

then he focused on his task – finding a newspaper for his town. first, he visited a local coffee shop. the waitress glared at him when he made it clear that he wasn’t ordering anything. instead, he situated himself in front of the largest stack of newspaper he could find and sorted through them. none of them matched the local paper his family received every sunday when he was a kid. frustrated, he tossed them back on the table and left without so much as a second look at the waitress.

he made his way to the library next. if they didn’t have it, he wouldn’t know where to go. he spent two hours tracking down every newspaper in that whole goddamn establishment, but literally none of them were the right one. he finally gave up and wandered over to the nicest-looking librarian and asked her about it.

“we don’t get those papers here, but you could go to the newspaper office,” she said, going so far as to write down directions for him. if tyler could’ve tipped a librarian without making it weird, he would’ve. instead, he smiled nervously at her and thanked her a million times. by the time he reached the news office, he was high off of taco bell and nice librarians, feeling better than he had in days.

the newspaper office proved more helpful than the library and the café combined. the elderly secretary pinched his cheek, told him he was a handsome young man, and continuously commented on his good manners as she pattered around in the office. as she handed him the correct newspaper, she told him that she wished her grandson was as nice as he was. tyler left the office with a free newspaper and a handful of old-lady mints. it was nice to be out, around people with good hearts.

maybe there was a reason to have faith in the world. a reason to leave his apartment for a reason other than his shitty job as a waiter at a nearby restaurant. sometimes, he street-performed with a ukulele on the side, but otherwise he didn’t get out much. his scholarship didn’t start for another few months, so he was basically on his own.

tyler had missed the feeling of a warm body against his at night. the premise of a completely pure relationship. he missed holding somebody against his chest. he missed being around people for more than the required nine-to-five and an occasional ukulele song.

he’d tried to start relationships before, but he was looking in the wrong place. girls he was interested in thought he was just a gay guy refusing his instincts, and guys thought he was just an asshole straight guy messing around. being bi was hard, but he never felt right lying about being full-blown gay. he never had luck with love. not even with his own family.

he took the bus home, milking as much as he could from the bus card his parents bought him god-knows-how-long ago, hoping they wouldn’t notice the transaction on their bills. he’d been using the card for two years, sporadically enough that they never noticed the charges. that, or they hadn’t cared enough to shut down the card.

 _they._ the word stung tyler – he still thought of his parents as, well, his _parents –_ not kelly. now that chris wasn’t – wasn’t around anymore – _ugh,_ tyler bit back tears and found a seat between a homeless-smelling guy and a girl who was barely wearing any clothes. the rest of the ride was permeated by dead-fish smell and way too much cleavage in tyler’s face.  god, either tyler was imagining things, or the guy was a fish butcher.

tyler still had a short walk back to his apartment, so he tried to enjoy the cool, dusky air and fall trees on the way back. the newspaper was shoved inside of his thin jacket, barely providing a barrier from the occasional wind. his mood, however, wasn’t dampened by the cold – a hot guy gave him a pitying look as they crossed paths. tyler smiled like a teenage girl for the remaining walk. yeah, he was pretty susceptible to any hot guys.

 _like josh_ … tyler’s stomach twisted in a perverse mixture of anticipation and dread. he’d come to terms with the fact that his washer and dryer were alive. also, that his washing machine was pretty damn sexy. he had curly, bright red hair cut in such a way that tyler wanted to run his hands through – beautiful, bottomless brown eyes that contained so many secrets – he was cute all the way through, especially with his hot nose ring. (tyler was secretly turned on by nose rings.)

tyler cursed himself as he unlocked the front door of his apartment. _that’s no way to be thinking about an inanimate object – or perhaps a hallucination._ the more he thought about it, the more likely it seemed. he’d been on some new meds lately – maybe hallucinations were a weird side effect of taking them. as soon as he woke up the next morning, he’d probably be fine and his washer and dryer would be in their normal white and rust-stained state.

tyler passed by the laundry room without a second glance, grabbing a granola bar from the cabinet – a delicacy, considering his usual diet of ramen and cheap coffee. he settled himself into bed, flicking on the lamp but keeping the room dark otherwise. he ripped open the bar and started hunting through the newspaper.

the rain started up again as he flipped to his desired page: the obituaries.

_christopher joseph passed away sunday evening…_


	5. work

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “um – c-can you guys still, um, wash and stuff?” he asked josh, who gave an eager spin. he nodded.  
> “yeah, i think. you need something done?”

tyler owned exactly one suit. it wasn’t even a full suit – just the jacket part. it was too close to the funeral – and too expensive – to buy a new one. so instead, he laid out a pair of black skinny jeans, a white button-down, and the black suit jacket on his dresser; and he began to dig through his drawers for a tie.

the funeral was tomorrow.

he knew he looked like shit, he hadn’t had his hair cut in god-knows-how-long, and it was starting to look way more scruffy than what he was comfortable with. he was skeletally skinny from his almost-homeless diet of flavored noodles and the occasional protein bar. but he wasn’t going to let his family – no, those _people –_ from seeing his father one last time. so instead, he straightened out the jacket and hoped it wasn’t too wrinkly, opting to throw the shirt and pants in the dryer. after reading the obituary – which talked about vaguely-known relatives like an aunt he hadn’t seen in ten years, but failed to so much as mention him – he’d forgotten about josh and brendon.

he was sure kelly had written the obituary. it had a lot of crap about how chris was in heaven now and how he’d never missed church in the last decade, not even when he’d broken his leg while at work, or gotten the flu. tyler wrote down the date of the funeral and, disgusted, threw out the rest of the newspaper.

he made his way back to the laundry room, pants and shirt slung over his shoulder. he’d nearly stuck them in the dryer when he realized that the appliances were still in their human-like states. brendon appeared to be sleeping, eyes closed, but josh was peering curiously at tyler. tyler almost dropped the jeans in surprise.

“um – c-can you guys still, um, wash and stuff?” he asked josh, who gave an eager spin. he nodded.

“yeah, i think. you need something done?”

tyler looked down at the shirt and pants in his arms. “yeah, I’m drying out these clothes…”

josh smirked. “going to a wedding or something? I’ve never washed anything this nice before... except your uniform.”

tyler frowned. “no, ummm… a-actually… it’s for a f-funeral…”

josh’s face dropped. “i’m sorry, man. i, um, i’m sorry…”

“it’s ok. um, i have to go.” he shoved the clothes into the dryer and turned it on before brendon could even get a word out.

then he went to go get dressed for his job as a waiter.

\-----

the restaurant he worked at was extremely fancy and expensive, but he barely got paid over minimum wage. apparently, they could afford genuine crystal chandeliers in every room – including the bathrooms, smack dab over the expensive electronic japanese toilets – but they wouldn’t pay him enough to fucking eat like a normal person. at least the tips here were pretty nice – rich people enjoyed throwing their money around, so if he lathered on the friendliness and winked a lot, he could get away with two hundred bucks, on a good night. most of that went away into a college account, leaving breadcrumbs for him to eat – eh, more like ramen.

tyler figured that living off noodles for three or four years would at least make up for his time after college. he’d hopefully have no student loans if he kept carefully hoarding money like he was now, and he could probably land a good job if he got good education.

he struggled through the night. it was busy, being saturday. all of the rich people wanted to come out and have big parties where they ordered huge platters of food. (huge platters of food that tyler _hated_ carrying.) most of the people ignored him and left him small tips on these nights – they were too busy bickering over how they’d split the five-thousand-dollar bill.

it was grueling work, and his feet hurt more than usual by the end. he was exhausted and achy and he _really hated this job._ it was much easier to grab his ukulele and preform for a few hours. at least people smiled at him and looked genuinely happy as they gave him money. to them, he was the cute little guy who sang his heart out for their entertainment, who made them laugh and cry. to the people at the restaurant, he was the annoying guy to curse at for “taking too long” and “getting them the wrong thing” – which was never his fault, it was the kitchen’s fault.

when he got home, he wanted nothing more to fall asleep, but instead, he felt compelled to grab his ukulele and work out one of his latest songs. he didn’t know what to call it – it wasn’t finished yet – but he did know the first part of the song. right now, it sounded like crap, being unfinished, but he knew he’d be able to polish it up eventually.

_“when the leader of the bad guys sang_

_something soft and soaked in pain,_

_i heard the echo from his secret hideaway…_

_he must’ve forgotten to close his door_

_as he cranked out those dismal chords,_

_and his four walls declared him insane…”_

tyler didn’t like the way he’d sung it, so he tried again, but it still sounded wrong. he glared at the ukulele and set it back down on the bedside table. he hadn’t gotten anywhere and now he just felt embarrassed, because he had a weird feeling that someone had heard him. after all, the walls here were paper thin – because of this, he knew his neighbor got into some kinky shit at night. (not the old lady with ninety cats, his other neighbor.)

he sank into his bed and, flipping off the lights, curled into his blankets and fell into a strangely peaceful sleep.

\-----

josh was sleeping serenely when he was awoken by an unfamiliar noise. it sounded… like a ukulele. he became fully awake, looking around as if he could locate the distant sound. brendon was still asleep beside him, rumbling quietly – the way he snored sometimes.

josh cocked his head and concentrated on the noise, which was definitely a ukulele. it went on for a few more seconds before he heard a quiet voice start singing lyrics that josh couldn’t really make out, but he knew they were kind of sad. it was a beautiful voice. it sounded like tyler’s.

josh realized – it _was_ tyler singing in his beautiful, sad voice. the sound stopped, but started up again in a few minutes, repeating the same lyrics, but differently. josh felt some strange emotion well up inside of him as he imagined tyler, cradling the ukulele and pouring his heart into the lyrics he sang.

josh fell back asleep to the sound of tyler singing, a smile on his face for some unknown reason.


	6. taxi cab

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "if you’re here, still alive, still in love with a man, then god has decided it’s okay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a/n: so, i know that the church where ‘helena’ was shot is all the way on the west coast, but i’m just going to imagine that’s where chris’ funeral is at.
> 
> also, how would you like a tiny bit of tyler x gerard? (too late, i've already written a bit of it, but it won't be around for long. JOSHLER FOREVER!!! ^^)

 

tyler woke up to the alarm on his phone blaring in his ear. he sat bolt upright and cursed. today was the funeral. after a quick shower, he went to the dryer and grabbed his clothes, which had been kept warm by brendon’s snoring. both utilities were asleep as he tiptoed from the room, but just as he was about to close the door, he heard josh’s voice.

“i… i heard you last night,” josh said quietly. tyler stopped and turned to him, ready to defend his music with whatever he could. sure, he didn’t like it, but that didn’t give his sassy appliance permission to make fun of it.

“oh?” tyler raised his eyebrow.

“it… it was beautiful…” josh mumbled, not meeting tyler’s eyes, but mostly because tyler was wearing a towel and josh didn’t want him to know he was blushing. tyler’s heart started racing and, not knowing what to do, he slammed the door shut and ran back to his room, the clothes bundled in his arms. he stumbled into his room and fell onto his bed, pulling the towel off. he wanted to get out of here as fast as possible, because for some reason, he wanted to get as far away from josh as he could.

he wiggled into the jeans and tucked in the shirt, putting on his jacket and checking himself in the mirror. he hurriedly grabbed his wallet and a protein bar, hurtling out of the apartment and down to the sidewalk. he wrangled down a taxi, telling the driver the address of the church and hoping he wouldn’t try to start a conversation with him.

unfortunately, the taxi driver was way too talkative, asking tyler way too many personal questions and not keeping his eyes on the road. tyler tried to keep his answers as short and unfriendly as possible, but the driver didn’t seem to get a hint, continuously chatting for the entire ride. he finally shut up when tyler told him about the funeral, and the next hour was relatively quiet.

tyler stared out the window as they approached the town. he was starting to see familiar landmarks, like his old high school, and the park with a playground he used to play at when he was little. a restaurant his family ate at on each of his siblings’ birthdays. they passed by neighborhoods where he used to hang out with his friends, a movie theatre that he briefly worked at when he turned fifteen, and even the guitar shop where he bought his ukulele after his sweet sixteen.

when the driver passed by the opening to his former neighborhood, he started to feel sick. he was suddenly worried that his family would attempt to crucify him or chase him with flaming torches and pitchforks from the church. maybe they would actually try to kill him. or maybe he was overreacting. maybe they would just ignore him and leave him alone long enough for him to pay his final respects to Chris.

god, he really hoped that they’d just ignore him. the thought made his chest feel strange. he was _hoping_ with all of his heart that _his family would ignore him at his father’s funeral._ that was when a person would really realize that their family life was really, really fucked up. _when they were hoping that their family would ignore them._

the church rolled into view, and tyler fisted his hands against his sides. the taxi driver bade him farewell as tyler paid him.

now it was time to wait. tyler had made the mistake of getting here an hour early, and there was no one in sight. he hesitantly made his way up to the side door of the church and knocked. he heard footsteps, and then the door was quickly opened. a man that tyler had never seen before was standing welcomingly, holding open the door.

“come in,” he said. “are you with the joseph family?”

tyler nodded, realizing at once that not only did the man look too young to be a priest, or a preacher, or whatever he was, but he was rather attractive. he pushed the thoughts into the bottom of his mind and forced a small smile as the man commented, “are you his son?”

tyler nodded. “i’m tyler,” he said.

the man held out his hand. “you can call me gerard,” he said.

“i never heard about a tyler,” the man – gerard – said, but then again, tyler had never seen this man before in his life. gerard looked doubtfully at him. “are you sure that, um…”

tyler almost laughed. of course his family had never mentioned him to this guy. “um, they don’t really consider me to be part of the family any more,” he admitted.

gerard frowned at him. “may i ask what happened?” he inquired, pulling out a chair for tyler and sitting across from him at the table.

tyler’s heart stopped for a second. he was sure that if he told this man the truth, he’d be kicked out of the church or something. maybe he’d preform an exorcism on him.

“um, we had conflicting views,” tyler hedged, trying to cut out anything that would make gerard kick him out.

gerard raised his eyebrows, making his forehead crinkle up. his hazel eyes were warm and comforting. “tyler, you can tell me anything, i’m not here to judge you. after all, the only person who can judge you is god.”

tyler felt himself breaking down under gerard’s gaze. “i made the mistake of… of c-coming out t-to them… on thanksgiving… i thought that they’d underst-tand that i was g-gay… but they kicked me out. i was s-seventeen. and they k-kicked me o-out.”

he was definitely crying now. crying like a little kid, right in front of this man who probably thought that he was some satanic, god-defying sinner. which was so far from the truth. tyler was a normal person – tyler was a normal, normal kid who was just different from everyone else – he opened his mouth to repeat this, defend himself from this man who was probably _disgusted –_

“it’s okay,” gerard said, placing his hand on top of tyler’s. “that’s their fault that they couldn’t accept you, tyler. see, i think a certain way. i believe that god creates everyone perfect in _his_ eyes. maybe they aren’t perfect to the world around them, but they are perfect to _him_. you are just different and nobody can accept that – it’s their loss. they can’t understand that god made you that way.”

tyler looked back up into gerard’s eyes, his eyebrows still raised but in more of a concerned expression. he felt himself calming down under gerard’s understanding words. “i’m willing to bet you’re a great guy, tyler. i bet you’re a great person. don’t blame yourself for being different. don’t let anyone judge you. i’m going to tell you that liking guys isn’t a sin. there’s nothing wrong with you. everyone has their own interpretation of sin, but god is the real judge. and if you’re here, still alive, still in love with a man, then god has decided it’s okay.”

tyler was speechless. gerard smiled at him and squeezed tyler’s hand a little.

“can i tell you a little secret?” gerard asked, leaning in closer. tyler nodded, still thinking about what gerard had said. he knew gerard worked _somewhere_ in the church, and it was such a surprise that he was so accepting of tyler. this was the same church that tyler’s parents went to, after all! how was this man so _nice?_

“i’m gay, too,” gerard whispered.

and tyler _smiled_ because he knew, for the first time in two years, that being gay was not his fault, and his parents had _absolutely no reason_ to be mad at him.

he was going to walk through that funeral and try to forgive them for what they’d done, even though they thought that they were right. he was going to be confident. he was not a dog with his tail between his legs. he was a person, he was a _normal person._

he _knew._


End file.
